Contentions

The AP has a story about how American businesses are now looking to market products to Muslim consumers:

The worldwide market for Islamically permitted goods, called halal, has grown to more than half a billion dollars annually. Ritually slaughtered meat is a mainstay, but the halal industry is much broader, including foods and seasoning that omit alcohol, pork products and other forbidden ingredients, along with cosmetics, finance and clothing.

Corporations have been courting immigrant Muslim communities in Europe for several years. Nestle, for example, has about 20 factories in Europe with halal-certified production lines and advertises to Western Muslims through its marketing campaign called “Taste of Home.” Nestle plans to increase its ethnic and halal offerings in Europe in coming years.

In the United States, iconic American companies such as McDonald’s (which already has a popular halal menu overseas) and Wal-Mart have entered the halal arena. In August, the natural grocery giant Whole Foods began selling its first nationally distributed halal food product — frozen Indian entrees called Saffron Road.

There is no reason to think that Muslims, in themselves, represent a uniquely promising niche market. What’s happening here is subtler. It’s about branding, not selling. Companies want to be seen by all potential consumers as being socially aware, on the side of the good guys, and behind fashionable causes. Four years ago, with An Inconvenient Truth dominating the culture, this meant offering bottles with 20 percent less plastic or toilet paper made from 100 percent recycled paper. But the market is turbulent and with the increased discrediting of global-warming alarmism, the popularity of green brands has taken a measurable hit. Today, with cover stories apologizing for American Islamophobia, being a compassionate corporation means offering halal frozen dinners and Islamic themed fabric patterns. In case it escapes the average consumer that these companies are brave and compassionate beyond measure, the AP story is peppered with ridiculous allusions to the “risks” these right-thinking businesses are incurring. It goes without saying that the planet was no more doomed to heat up than American Muslims are threatened by their neighbors. Under the guise of the great American tradition of equality, these companies are capitalizing on the great American tradition of PR. They got this story out of it, didn’t they?